Modern computing and display technologies have facilitated the development of systems for so called “virtual reality” or “augmented reality” experiences, wherein digitally reproduced images or portions thereof are presented to a user in a manner wherein they seem to be, or may be perceived as, real. A virtual reality, or “VR”, scenario typically involves presentation of digital or virtual image information without transparency to other actual real-world visual input; an augmented reality, or “AR”, scenario typically involves presentation of digital or virtual image information as an augmentation to visualization of the actual world around the user.
There are numerous challenges when it comes to presenting 3D virtual content to a user of an AR system. A central premise of presenting 3D content to a user involves creating a perception of multiple depths. In other words, it may be desirable that some virtual content appear closer to the user, while other virtual content appear to be coming from farther away. Thus, to achieve 3D perception, the AR system should be configured to deliver virtual content at different focal planes relative to the user.
There may be many different ways to generate various focal planes in the context of AR systems. Some example approaches are provided in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 14/726,429 filed on May 29, 2015 entitled “METHODS AND SYSTEMS FOR CREATING FOCAL PLANES IN VIRTUAL AND AUGMENTED REALITY,” under attorney docket number ML.20017.00 and U.S. patent application Ser. No. 14/555,585 filed on Nov. 27, 2014 entitled “VIRTUAL AND AUGMENTED REALITY SYSTEMS AND METHODS,” under attorney docket number ML.30011.00, incorporated by reference above. The design of these virtual reality and/or augmented reality systems presents numerous challenges, including the speed of the system in delivering virtual content, quality of virtual content, eye relief of the user, size and portability of the system, and other system and optical challenges.
The systems and techniques described herein are configured to work with the visual configuration of the typical human to address these challenges.